The director of “The Cove” is back with a new eco-thriller

The Cove won 2010’s Best Documentary Oscar, helped halve the number of dolphins and porpoises killed in Japan, and arguably laid the groundwork for popular SeaWorld expose Blackfish (which in a just world would be this year’s Best Doc). Now The Cove’sdirector, Louie Psihoyos, is back with a new film he promises is even better.

“The Cove was just a warm-up act for a much, much more ambitious project,” Psihoyos said in the Kickstarter video for the new documentary (code-named The Heist). “We’re taking on the biggest threat humanity has ever faced: mass extinction of species.”

We’re curious to see his team’s take on mass extinction — it’s not exactly the most personal or provocative topic on people’s minds (compared to, say, fracking, GMOs, the Koch brothers, school lunches, etc.). Yet in a recent interview with Ecorazzi, Psihoyos promised that the film is equal parts heart-tugging and Ocean’s 11-style spy thriller:

The film is a result of watching too many Jacques Cousteau specials and James Bond movies. The opening scene feels like a Bond opening …

We just screened a rough cut of the first 75% of the film for a big festival — I shouldn’t say which one yet, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Let’s just say the ending will be spectacular, like nothing that’s ever been done before.

Exciting yet super vague! The film is currently in post-production — cross your fingers that it comes out this year.